Who do you call when you want electro-tinged, industrial-inflected rock for a world gone wrong? Trent Reznor, of course. Along with groundbreaking work as a recording artist in the 1990s, Reznor's done film for both The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
And now, it's been reported in USA Today that the Oscar-winning composer and band frontman will be doing the theme music for Activision's next Call of Duty title:
"I have always looked to that franchise as the cutting edge of what seemingly unlimited budgets and full-on not cutting any corners can do in the current day and age."
The Black Ops II story envisions a new Cold War between the U.S. and China and an international villain plays them off each other. "There is a lot of reservation and angst and sense of loss and regret and anger bubbling under the surface," Reznor says. "So it didn't make sense to have a gung ho patriotic feeling kind of theme song. It has to feel weighty."
This isn't Reznor's first video game music work by a long shot. The singer also did music for Quake and was also working with Id Software on tracks and sound engineering for Doom 3 until he had to abandon the project.
Trent Reznor composes 'Call of Duty: Black Ops II' music [USA Today]